![chaka demus chaka demus](https://i1.sndcdn.com/artworks-IfMPLtIqAVopOVCq-mpduQw-t500x500.jpg)
Pliers, who worked with such producers as King Jammy, Winston Riley, King Tubby, Black Scorpio, and Coxsone Dodd, recorded such solo hits as "Snake in the Grass" and "Bam Bam," a hip-hop reworking of a Toots & the Maytals tune. His subsequent hits included "Everybody Loves Chaka," a duet with Yellowman, "Bring It to Me," a duet with deejay/vocalist Scottie, and "Everybody Loves Chaka" and "Chaka on the Move," which he recorded solo. Although he made his recording debut with the King Jammy-produced single "Increase Your Knowledge," his first hit came in 1986 when he recorded "One Scotch" as a duet with Admiral Bailey. Demus, who grew up in the Waterhouse district of Kingston, launched his career as a deejay for the Roots Majestic sound system. R&B blandoids yet still tuff enough to raise gunshots and shouts of "Murder" back in the Kingston dancehalls.īoth Chaka Demus & Pliers had established successful solo careers prior to combining their efforts. According to reggae website Real Groove, Chaka Demus & Pliers are "sexy, soulful and poppy enough to be saleable to U.S. The first Jamaican act to place three consecutive singles in the Top Five of the British music charts, Chaka Demus & Pliers have continued to make their presence felt. “I’m really big on citing sources,” he stresses-and here, these footnotes also add up to a killer weekend playlist.Rough-voiced deejay Chaka Demus (born John Taylor in Kingston, Jamaica in August, 1963) and smooth-toned vocalist Pliers (born Everton Bonner in Rockhall Hills, Jamaica on April 4, 1963) have come together to create one of the most successful duos in the history of Jamaican music. Those images, etched into memory, still do, judging from this short list of hits that continue to influence his work. ”I’m a child of the generation where everyone would sit around and watch the premiere of a Janet Jackson video, and it would run your life for, like, a month,” Jawara says.
![chaka demus chaka demus](https://www.reggaeville.com/fileadmin/user_upload/chakademus-buildbridges.jpg)
With his younger sister, Candace, as a patient accomplice and muse, he began re-creating the power bobs and mile-long extensions seen on Missy Elliott, Lil’ Kim, and Christina Aguilera. “In the late ’90s, early 2000s, everything was controlled by the music videos: the way we dressed, the way we looked, the way we talked,” the hairstylist says of the collective fascination with MTV, VH1, and BET. While that dancehall backdrop set the tempo for carefree maximalism, it was a teenage move to another Jamaica-the neighborhood in Queens-that revved up Jawara’s creative pace. His hashtag on the post: #startedasabraider. If his career has taken him backstage at Chanel and Fendi during his years assisting Sam McKnight, and now on set with the likes of Solange, Dev Hynes, and Zendaya, those roots are never far. “That’s when I fell in love with all of it,” he explained in the November issue of Vogue, as part of a story spotlighting rising hairstylists who are reshaping the narrative around hair. If the visual inspiration was new, the hairstyling techniques went way back-to his aunt’s salon in Jamaica, where young Jawara got a hands-on education in over-the-top dancehall looks. A borrowed line from this year’s Migos track, “T-Shirt,” it was just the latest example of Jawara’s encyclopedic catalog of music video references that weave into his editorial work: in this case, the piled-on animal pelts, finger-wide twists, and statement shades worn by the hip-hop group. “Imma feed my family, ain’t no way around it,” the hairstylist Jawara recently captioned his Instagram post of the model Imaan Hammam, decked in a caramel-peach fur coat and a headful of his crisply executed cornrows.